Category Archives: Personal

Posted onJune 4, 2016|Comments Off on Whatever temperature it is in the room is room temperature

A Vintage fridge keeps things slightly cool.

But mine does not. For as of almost a week ago it is dead. I mean I still have it, but the insides hold at 68°. And rising. It’s where I store the room temperature food. A new one will be delivered tomorrow. A no-frills version – according to the repairman and three salesman at three stores the new refrigerant is more corrosive than Freon and burns out compressors, and they declared my 8 1/2 year-old fridge to be “A good life span.” And I said “then there’s no reason to buy anything but the cheapest cheap fridge. Since they’re not built to last anyway.” Why pay for the fancy stuff that will keep working even after the compressor renders your refrigerator a room temperature box?

PS, since I have an abandoned refrigerator stationed in my kitchen I guess I have to be on the lookout for roving bands of street urchins who may wish to play inside. Next to the homemade sauerkraut.

Posted onMarch 31, 2016|Comments Off on A short list of things we can’t afford anymore (a poem)

I steal from Richard F Yates, because it’s a habit with me. Everybody got a habit, me, nuns, William Burroughs… only Richard F Yates lives free.

Can’t afford the status quo of War, Big Business Giveaways, Private Prisons, Institutionalized Racism, Unregulated Healthcare, College Loans. Can’t afford the lack of a Living Wage. Can’t afford Outsourcing, Offshoring, Free Trade shenanigans. Can’t afford businesses declaring everyone an independent contractor. Can’t afford driving a personal car into the ground for someone else to profit. Can’t afford the shifting of the burden to the bottom. Can’t afford payday loans. Can’t afford the sky high rent. Can’t afford the money so far spent that profited only the very top. Can’t afford to pick up the tab for those who attend $20,000 a plate fundraisers While you and I may skip meals. Can’t afford the bailout of the ship that sunk mine. Do I look like a fool’s goldmine? Can’t afford $7,000 a pill to stay alive. Can’t afford not to invest in the future. Can’t afford the status quo. It’s unrealistic. It has no future. It was obsolete when it started. Why should you and I have to pay for it?

Professional wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy piper came to my high school to speak to my world problems class. He gave a long blustering right wing tirade.

He was there to talk about his expertise vis-a-vis violence in society. He did not come in his work clothes but dressed in jeans and a dress-shirt. On the wall was a signed photo of the teacher’s hero: Ronald Reagan.

He did bring his rasslin’ bluster, somewhat toned down, as he launched into a tirade about how society was too lenient on youth and other crimes. As he worked himself into a boil he finally reached his crescendo with a statement that people should be beaten and shot for petty crimes and hijinks. The room laughed at him. He was taken aback and growled, “You laugh because none of you have ever been shot!” And the laughter exploded. You could barely hear him protest, “If any of you had ever been shot you wouldn’t be laughing.” He had the room rolling in the aisles.

In the center of the room, laughing, was a guy in a leg cast. He had been shot.

After Piper left, the teacher, a friend of Piper, gave a long blustering speech about how we were mean to Rowdy Roddy Piper.

I know what you’re saying. Roddy Piper died today. This is a terrible memorial. But I enjoyed the film They Live; just not as much as Hell Comes to Frogtown.

I have a rabbit on each shoulder. I know what you’re thinking: “One is good one is evil.” But you’re wrong. They’re both evil.

They are both white rabbits and they get a lot of mileage out of this. There is a certain trust engendered in the white rabbit by society, as people are trained from an early age to follow them wherever they may lead without asking any questions, even if we all end up in a bunker far underground.

It makes me hopping mad!

But I always feel I am running late and that time is running out and I need to hop to it.

And it does nothing for my nerves, these rabbits, hopping up and down on my shoulders, as if every day and night were a rabbit holiday.

Flipped through a marketing book. I don’t have much love for either marketing or self-help books. I always marvel at how they take so many pages to say so little. Once I skimmed through a book filled with “information” and condensed it down to two pages. Sprinkled over 300 odd pages were two pages of useful information.

Anyway, the marketing book said this:

(and I am paraphrasing it better than they did)

“In todays world to be mediocre is to be good, to be competent is to be astounding beyond comprehension.”

I had a friend who wrote a philosophy textbook he wanted me to read over before it was printed. It was called “What is Good.” I think he would have enjoyed that little soundbite. Not the book I gleaned it from.

This second episode of the David Raffin podcast is both delightful and delicious. It’s about pancakes and war. And it has robots in it. And Stanley Kubrick. Yes, all that in a 10 minute package. For free. Almost like it was made by a robot. For robots.

“The praise I seek from my readers is that they finish my books. After being alternately damned and praised for equally invalid reasons, I am content to trade fame for accuracy of interpretation. Fame, for a writer, is like being a dancing bear with a little hat on your head.” – Gustav Hasford

Somewhere I have photocopies of his work as a young college student, copied from yellowing newsprint.

In the folklore of the IWWMr. Block is a man who never does anything right. He stands up for all the wrong things and is disappointed with the outcomes.

When I was in the seventh grade Mr. Block was my woodshop teacher. Not only was he Mr. Block because he taught woodshop, he was Mr. Block because whenever something raised his ire he would throw a random wood block at students.

Wood blocks would whiz through the air, wobbly projectiles barely missing random student heads. Then, often, colliding or not colliding with their intended target. Mr. Block had terrible aim; which was just one of his many sins.

One day a random block whizzed within an inch or two of my ear. My left ear. One of my two favorites. The intended target/victim sitting behind me and to my left.

When the projectile hit him he shouted, “Hey, you can’t do that.”

Mr. Block was incensed. More incensed than he was when he decided to launch an attack.

He basically said that he could do anything he wanted to in his classroom. Wherein I said, “No, he’s right, you can’t throw things.”

This made him even angrier. Mr. Block was well known for throwing things at students in class. Everyone knew this. In retrospect I must wonder if anyone ever challenged him before.

He said, to me, “This is none of your business!”

I said, “You made it my business.”

He said, “How would you like to go explain yourself in the office?”

I said, “I’d love to.”

Later, in the administrative wing, and all schools have ever-expanding administration wings, the assistant vice principal tried to take the side of Mr. Block.

I pounded my fist on the table and demanded justice.

The assistant vice principal said, “How would you like me to call your father?”

I told him I thought that was a terrific idea. The only good idea he had thus far that afternoon.

My father, a union representative, came into the office later that afternoon and chewed out the assistant vice principal. And told him that, in fact, teachers cannot throw projectiles at students in class. And that assistant vice principals could not attempt to punish third party students who voice opposition to the throwing of projectiles in class. This was expressed in a low voice but in no uncertain terms.

And I never again saw a piece of wood fly through the air at school. At least not in my presence.